I am a Java developer and pretty new to flash. I have
developed a
Java Swing application and would like to replace the Swing
(the GUI
part) with Flash. In other words, I am thinking about having
flash be
my front end and have Java in the backend. This is going to
be a non-
browser based application.

It is extremely important for me to spend as little as
possible on
software licenses as I have a very tight budget.

My thoughts on the architecture are as follows:

Keep the server side and most of the application business
logic in
Java, convert the GUI part ONLY to flash and use flash action
scripts
to connect the GUI with the backend and business logic. Then
I am
thinking about running the application in Apollo. I do not
want to
use Flex as it imposes a huge costs to my application
development and deployment.

Now, my questions are:

1) Is the above architecture a viable solution?

2) If I adopt the above architecture, is it true that I do
not have
to pay license fees to Adobe for commercial usage of the
software I
am developing?

3) Is Apollo stable enough to be able to use it in production
environment since my application is going to be non-browser
based?

4) Any suggestions/flaws/improvements on the above
architecture with
having minimal costs in mind?

5) Finally, any thoughts on what the architecture is for
poker.com? I
know it is a flash based application, but the fact that it is
a non-
browser based application is of interest to me.

Apollo is still pre-release Alpha version.
What are the timelines for the changes you are planning to
do. You certainly have to wait for the final version otherwise you
will face a lot of problems initially with bugs and all.